Commuting - wheel out of whack (untrue) again...

wheel out of whack (untrue) again...

hey all, just wondering if anyone else suffers from this as i'm trying to ascertain if it's the way i ride and the surfaces that are doing it, or whether i need to look at the wheel itself, but after having my gios road bike fully serviced last week, which included truing the wheels, my back wheel has enough variation in it's spin to actually rub the brake pad by the time i got home tonight. i've done 4 x 20km commutes and a 60km series of hills last weekend, and the roads aren't perfect but i'm dumbfounded to see the wheel back in wobble mode.

i cross a few sets of train-tracks each way to and from work, and there are a few pretty rough areas of sealed/poorly maintained roads on the same ride, that are a bit jarring at speed but its not like i've been hitting gutters or anything.

i weigh 76kg so i know i'm not putting undue stress on the wheels! is this likely a result of the roads, or is it a common symptom for a wheel to lose it's true again and again when something in particular is wrong? ie. could new spokes fix it?

the wheels are ritchey aero pro rims on ritchey hubs. they're mid to late 90s.

thanks all,

andy

I don't know for sure (don't really know much that underpins wheel truing to be honest) but it might be the tensioning of the spokes. From the little I have read about the topic, if the wheel is trued without tensioning the spokes properly it won't take long to work itself out of true again. Properly tensioned you shouldn't have many issues.

Hopefully someone with a clue will let you know what's up though.

they're mid to late 90s.


10-15 years old? Get them looked at by a *good* shop. They may just be worn out.

If the wheel keeps going out of true, your spokes are undertensioned. Bring them to a good LBS with competent mechanics and ask them to check the tension.

thanks all, the thing is i did take the bike to a *good* shop. the thing is they had a half-price full service package and i think even though they cleaned the bike up really well, the mech work seems to be lacking. i put a 20km commute and then a 60km weekend ride on the bike and my headset was so loose i could turn it by hand. they fixed that up for me, but now the wheel is whacked so i'm thinking half-price may have meant half-assed!

If the wheel keeps going out of true, your spokes are undertensioned. Bring them to a good LBS with competent mechanics and ask them to check the tension.

+1 - Wheels go out over time for sure, but from your description of your conditions there is no way that should happen so quickly had the wheel been properly tuned. Ask other cyclists in your area for recommendations on a different shop that knows wheels. Take it there and have them re-tension all the spokes on the entire wheel. I'm very fortunate to have absolute wheel wizards at my LBS, who are fast and barely charge me anything.

thanks all, the thing is i did take the bike to a *good* shop. the thing is they had a half-price full service package and i think even though they cleaned the bike up really well, the mech work seems to be lacking. i put a 20km commute and then a 60km weekend ride on the bike and my headset was so loose i could turn it by hand. they fixed that up for me, but now the wheel is whacked so i'm thinking half-price may have meant half-assed!

In my experience, most bike shops don't do a very good job with wheels. I had a similar problem....had a wheel always going out of true. I repeatedly brought it back to the LBS and they trued it, but never bothered to fix the tension or even tell me that the spokes were undertensioned. The just kept charging me $20 for the true. I finally did some research, figured it out on my own, and learned to work on my own wheels. I've built several wheels since then and haven't needed to retrue any wheels since. The whole experience turned me off to LBSs. Now I just do everything myself and my bikes actually work better and break down less often.

Since you paid to have it trued, take it back to the shop. Before you get it back from them, retrued, ask them to show you the tension in the spokes on the drive side. It should be over 100 kg and even all around =é- 15%

Thanks AndrewP, i need to be armed with info like that. i feel i have a right to take it back given how briefly their handiwork lasted!

Could also be a warped rim.

Note that most bike shops (i've encountered) have different services for truing and wheel building. Truing just gets it straight so the brakes wont rub. The other service does the whole tension and check thing. You have to ask for what you want, and they carry different prices.